Hi jcdenver -

One of the biggest factors at play here is the (probably) huge difference in video bitrate between what your camera shoots & what's burnt onto the DVD. DVDs are burnt with a video BR of about 8MBps. Your camera records (depending on the settings you've chosen) at bitrates of between ~7MBps & 17MBps.

When you're shooting action footage (as you are), that bitrate setting is important.

Where the clips are stored would have no impact on the motion artifacts you've observed.

Is it necessary for the games to be distributed on DVD? If you copied them to a USB device, such as a small flash drive, the coaches could view them in full HD at the original resolution (through PC or TV).

Still downloading your clips.

Cheers - Tony
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Having said that, I have to eat my words a bit.

I downloaded the "testHD.m2ts" clip you posted and produced it to MPEG-2 DVD HQ (as it would probably be rendered on DVD) in PD9, PD10 & PD11. The resultant files were completely different. Where both PD9 & 10 produced terrible motion artifacts, PD11 spat out something a user would be happier with.

In a new project, I inserted the original m2ts clip and the produced files from PD10 & PD11. These were masked to compare the output files. Here are some snapshots of the screen. In the first shot, that referee is only walking!





So - it's not necessarily ALL about bitrate... but it is necessarily about the way PD10 processes MPEG-2 DVD HQ.

I'd find a different way to distribute the videos or take advantage of the current 30% discount on PD11.

Cheers - Tony
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Tony
WOW what a thorough and thoughtful analysis. Thank you so much for taking the time to look at this. I think the best thing in my mind is that you as a professional user experienced the same issues in the conversion process, so it wasn't just errors on my part. That was very reassuring. I will now plan on buying the PD11 upgrade shortly.

However, I still have some questions which even with your good answer I just can't resolve.
1. Why did the earlier games not exhibit these artifacts?
2. Why does it take a few minutes before these artifacts appear? (In all my tests, they didn't start until 3-5 minutes into the recording.)
3. Why doesn't this happen to everyone who uses an HD camcorder and PD10 to create DVDs?
4. Lastly, could this have anything to do with the camcorder settings? Over the Holidays, I know I was messing around with the camcorder settings to try to get to know the camcorder better after not using it much for several years, but I can't remember if I changed the frame rate or not. If it was previously in Cinema mode at 24 FPS, would that be a contributing factor now that I know it's at 60i?

Thanks again for your very thoughtful and very professional help!! Much appreciated.

Jim

Hi Jim -

To me, there can't be too much wrong with the settings you're using on your camera since PD produced a clean clip from it... "testHD.m2ts" - but, that's only guessing since you didn't post an original clip straight from the camera.

The MediaInfo report from "testHD" is attached. If you could post the MediaInfo report for one of your original camera clips that might provide some clues. MediaInfo is a free media analysis tool... http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en/Download

To your questions:
1. Yes - there certainly may be some factor that's making the motion artifacts worse & that may be related to camera settings.
2. In the tests I ran, I only produced files. I didn't burn any DVDs. The motion artifacts appeared immediately. Kind of an invalid comparison because we're using different source material.
3. I don't know that it doesn't happen to others. I've come across quite a few cases where MPEG-2 DVD HQ production was poor in previous versions of PD.
4. If you download MediaInfo & post a report from one of your camera clips, that will show what settings were used. Better still, shoot a 5 second clip and post it here as an attachment.

Jim - is DVD production necessary? Wouldn't the coaches prefer a higher resolution version? Distributing the videos via USB device would eradicate the issue.

Cheers - Tony
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Tony
I bought PD11 and it fixed the problem entirely, just as you had experienced. Bizarre as to why the earlier games were OK and these weren't. I tried attaching the MediaInfo files for your reference three times but it locked up every time, so I am pasting directly into the window here. Sorry. Thanks.

Jim

Old File
General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : F:\DIGITAL VIDEOS\DSST BB\Lutheran\00060.MTS
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 1.19 GiB
Duration : 10mn 19s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 16.5 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 18.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=15
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 10mn 19s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 15.6 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 16.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.251
Stream size : 1.12 GiB (94%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 10mn 19s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -67ms
Stream size : 18.9 MiB (2%)

New File
General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : F:\DIGITAL VIDEOS\DSST BB\Peak to Peak\A\00002.MTS
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 1.03 GiB
Duration : 8mn 57s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 16.5 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 18.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=15
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 8mn 56s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 15.5 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 16.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.250
Stream size : 994 MiB (94%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 8mn 57s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -66ms
Stream size : 16.4 MiB (2%)

Hi Jim -

Glad you got it sorted. Just a shame it took $$$ to do it. You'll find PD11 a greatly improved piece of software over PD10 in many ways!

Looking at the two MediaInfo reports side by side, the properties are almost the same, which would indicate that your recording settings are the same.

To attach the MediaInfo report, did you first export it to a .txt (text) file?

Anyway - I'm glad you're over your motion artifacts.

Cheers - Tony
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Tony
Just wanted to say thanks again. Noticed you're from down under. There is an Aussie connection for basketball players at the local college here in Denver, Metro State. They have had a steady stream of good Aussie players for probably a decade. Just more trivia for you.

I understand you guys are really baking down there. Stay cool! Wish we could export a bit of our 0°F weather to you to cool it off for you.

Best Wishes
Jim